How do people expect WotC to stop every single instance of AI generated art? Do people think they're going to sit there and watch every single picture get drawn by hand?
They created a policy and said they require artists to not use AI - what can they possibly do if an artist breaks the policy and lies about it? I don't get how people think this is somehow WotC's fault
How do people expect WotC to stop every single instance of AI generated art? Do people think they're going to sit there and watch every single picture get drawn by hand?
They created a policy and said they require artists to not use AI - what can they possibly do if an artist breaks the policy and lies about it? I don't get how people think this is somehow WotC's fault
You said it THEY created the policy so they have to live up to it. When they don't people are gonna be unhappy.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Considering WotC has doubled down on ai art being a non issue with the fact "ai Art" is creeping into both MTG and D&D how do you feel as a Player/DM feel about this very real problem creeping into the game?
Are you good, bad or indifferent about this as a player/DM?
I'm of 2 minds on this, I love the technology, hate that the people doing it are cheating and stealing art to train the algorithm. (Because it's not really Artificial Intelligence, it's an Algorithm mixing and merging Art and Pictures into new Art and Pictures. Based on descriptive terms.)
So say they hired an artist or group of artists to paint a bunch of images, and then they trained the Algorithm on those images and Public domain Art I would have no issues with it. But they are using another kind of AI to gather all the images on the internet to train the Algorithm. And that is actually illegal, specifically copyright law. They are doing a poor job at hiding it as well.
Now for me and my D&D game as the DM, meh, whatever, if my players use the art algorithm to make a version of their character I don't care, as long as they don't pay anyone for it. Now if WotC charged me money for Stolen art, I would be annoyed, as D&D has gone down this road before and lost.
Deities and Demigods 1st Published in 1980, hit with several big copyright lawsuits, they pulled it, republished with credit to one copyright holder and removing the other, they then pulled it again republished with no stolen material. (Copyrights they stole back then: Michael Moorcock's the Melnibonéan mythos, and the Cthulhu Mythos from H. P. Lovecraft.) Sure that book didn't use AI, but they did basically the same thing, took someone else's work without permission and claimed it as their own and tried to make money on it.
So basically I follow the rule of memes, common people who gain nothing but a moment of fun using generative AI art no big, a company making money using stolen copyrighted material I have an issue with it.
How do people expect WotC to stop every single instance of AI generated art? Do people think they're going to sit there and watch every single picture get drawn by hand?
They created a policy and said they require artists to not use AI - what can they possibly do if an artist breaks the policy and lies about it? I don't get how people think this is somehow WotC's fault
You said it THEY created the policy so they have to live up to it. When they don't people are gonna be unhappy.
Notably, they created the policy after one instance. The MTG promotional thing is the second instance, but only the first after the policy was announced. I wouldn't exactly call this some endemic problem yet. I'm not pleased it slipped through, and their social media account initially insisting the art was real was a big step on the proverbial rake, but again, we're talking about two relatively minor instances that have been addressed. Maybe that changes and they go back on their word at some point in the future; then I'll be worried/angry/writing stern letters.
How do people expect WotC to stop every single instance of AI generated art? Do people think they're going to sit there and watch every single picture get drawn by hand?
They created a policy and said they require artists to not use AI - what can they possibly do if an artist breaks the policy and lies about it? I don't get how people think this is somehow WotC's fault
You said it THEY created the policy so they have to live up to it. When they don't people are gonna be unhappy.
Yeah, they created it, and communicated it to the artists they work with. If the artist doesn’t abide by it, how is it their fault? So you hold them responsible when someone else lies to them? The blame goes to the artist. Who, by the way, should be the one extra sensitive to this, as a person who’s creations could potentially be used to train more AI, and who could be put out if a job by AI.
And if people really want to be cynical, remember that WotC sells prints of the art pieces, or at least licenses them back to the original artist, who then sells them. They (Wizards) have a financial interest in having high quality, copyrighted art.
On the one hand: I will say that WOTC more than deserves the drumming it's getting for "taking a moral stand against AI!" publicly, yet employing it repeatedly internally; WOTC are sorry they got caught, not that they saved a few dollars. On the other, I'll actually partially echo Caerwyn_Glyndwr; to quote the old adage: "Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good".
It's Hanlon's Razor honestly. "Sorry they got caught" implies intentional malfeasance when in reality they just have bad review processes, especially for things that aren't part of the core product pipeline.
I mean; how is that surprising? Considering that we know from recent experience they have poor review processes for things that ARE part of the core product pipeline.
To me it's the naked dishonesty that screams "yeah we're guilty": in the case of the MTG promo background teh attempt to say "no no, you're all crazy! That's not AI generated!" only to walk it back a bit later. As they say: "don't pee on my head and then try to tell me it's raining." ... I'd add "Especially if you want me to "trust" you or what you say later."
They thought it wasn't, because the artist either lied to them, or was unaware of Adobe putting AI into the tools they used. The more we rake them over the coals for an honest mistake, the closer we get to the suits saying "screw it, we've lost those customers anyway" and diving into AI with both feet.
So, this will be another one of the things that there are upmteen bazillion threads about from people with some sort of an axe to grind against whoever happens to own D&D at the time.
THis is like the 10th one in just the last 3 months or something.
1 - it is a bad faith argument as laid out. Sorry, it is, because it presupposes something without evidence.
2 - Hasbro (because wizards is a division within hasbro, not a stand alone company anymore, and hasn't been for, like, decades, so to call them out is asinine and ignorant) is a company that is primarily built on IP. Right now, Generative AI art output -- written and image -- is not something one can copyright. It is potentially (though untested) something that could not be trademarked. As a direct result of that, not only does Hasbro have to make sure that stuff doesn't sneak in, but the creators of AI programs are actively seeking ways to make it possible to get it all into stuff like this. Admittedly. Which means that like anyone else who depends on intellectual property and the resultant licensing, they have to invest funds in something which there is no clear cut set of rules for locating, detecting, identifying, or dealing with. In something that has only become an issue in the last two ****in years.
3 - People went on a wild tear about "AI art" being used in the PHB and one MTG card -- and in both cases, the "internet at large" was full of horseshit, and actively insulting the artists who created the very works that were being proclaimed as "AI".
No company that has ever owned D&D has ever been free of BS and drama, just like no company is ever free of BS and drama. And, for those counting, that is three companies.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
just wanna put it out there that Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, and Midjourney have been proven to definitely contain the capability to completely replicate a work of art or a screenshot from a movie (they did feed the individual frames of a number of films into their dataset) and you can do so with very few keywords, often times keywords only vaguely related to the characters. There have been a number of articles in the last week about this. It is not creating completely unique artworks and characters every time, it is capable of accidental copyright infringement, and it is trained, without permission, on millions of unassuming, uninvolved artists.
As an artist myself, the issue is not, and never will be with AI tools. AI tools make doing work easier. AI tools are fantastic (two good examples of inert AI tools are The Colourizer in Clip Studio Paint, or the Content-Aware fill in Photoshop). AI tools can and should be developed to help people in all fields. The issue is squarely with the dehumanization and abuse of artists, the lying, the stealing, and the cheating.
These repugnant clowns who call the shots with Midjourney are out here talking about artists as if they are just an inanimate data set for which to train better AIs on, they are adding tens of thousands of specific artist's names to their catalogue of STYLE references... to try and ensure people can just have those very specific artist's commissions free of charge. And they have publicly discussed that they are using specific popular artist's works to ensure they can create "pre-rendered images" using their style completely that can then be altered minimally to ensure consistency, and how they launder artists work through a codex to keep it from being recognized by other softwares and avoid legal troubles. And the entire time, they are dehumanizing the artists that they are quite literally stealing from.
Not to mention several of the Generative AI Art tools out there are also being made so that they can generate fake "work in progress" shots so that these slimeballs can "prove the authenticity of hand made work" to try and compete in painting and art competitions against humans, or to try and be a part of painting and digital art communities online for people who want to share and grow their styles and skills together, as well as share their ideas, tips, and tricks to help each other. They do this to allow themselves to call themselves artists and to gain fame and to shame actual legitimate artists. But lets face it, the idiot ordering the pizza with specific toppings isn't the chef. They just the hungry idiot at the counter with the money, and no one would ever in their right minds call them a chef for ordering that pizza.
I have on SO many occasions seen and heard AI Bros talking about how "now that AI is here to stay, we can finally knock artists off their pestle and make them suffer" as if "starving artist" wasn't a title almost all of us but a very small number hold while we work 1 to 3 other jobs to make ends meet. All because we did not want to waste our precious time doing some weird nonsense for exposure one time on deviant art when these people were 14 and desperate to get some art of their Sonic OC.
It is disgusting, and until the creators of these sites are held responsible, and Generative AI tools are created fairly, without compromising anyone's existence or their agency over their works, I foresee a continuation of these arguments.
And before anyone says Generative AI doesn't compromise someones existence, there are mushroom foraging guides being written by AIs and sold on amazon that have incorrect information that can and will get people killed. Why? because it seemed lucrative enough at the time, I guess. Just another disgusting and abhorrent symptom of this cancer I suppose.
____
Back to the topic at hand, I think WotC is doing as much as anyone can be expected to do given the current digital climate. I appreciate their efforts to hire artists, and think those artists SHOULD be allowed to utilize AI assisted tools, within reason. I feel like so long as the AI they are using has been developed ethically (either trained on owned, or licensed data points), and is not responsible for more than 40-50% of the artwork in total, it is absolutely okay. At the end of the day, you should be hiring someone who is actually doing the work that people are paying money to experience.
Also, please note: I am not condemning anyone for using AI art for personal use. I am not condemning the people who were alleged to have used AI Generated Imagery for the D&D book in question (there's a equal enough chance they weren't, and were, with or without "proof") And I do not condone the bullying of anyone who may or may not have utilized AI.
just wanna put it out there that Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, and Midjourney have been proven to definitely contain the capability to completely replicate a work of art or a screenshot from a movie (they did feed the individual frames of a number of films into their dataset) and you can do so with very few keywords, often times keywords only vaguely related to the characters.
Copying and pasting from an image search is just an AI search, not even AI generated anything. "Completely replicate" is describing a copy and paste operation. How in blazes would an AI 'completely replicate' otherwise? If that is all the AI is really doing, then it should be required to be labelled as such.
Because the generative stuff is probabilistic, stuff that's strongly correlated in their training data will tend to come out together. This is easier to do with the text generators, but it can happen with the image ones, too. (And it's unlikely to be completely identical, just very, very similar.)
In most cases, this is incredibly true, but for Midjourney, they were expressing that the end result for these specific style-based requests would be to have it altered very little. Maybe change some colours, maybe change an arm pose, maybe slap a background from another work by the same artist in there with again minimal changes. It isn't PERFECTLY the same at the end of the day, but without that codex baking they are doing, tools like Google lens, google reverse image search, and tineye would still add the works to related images of the original components. They expressed that they wanted it this way they could get the most popular heavy lifting mostly pre-generated to avoid strain on the system and pump out those works with less wait time.
It's all very seedy and underhanded stuff that is actively being designed by people who do want to cause harm to artists.
So, I was zooming in close to the image for the first story on the homepage (PHB 2024).
I swear that image is constructed from layered AI images. I could be wrong, but it sure looks like it.
The one with a bunch of people fighting a big dragon? Doesn't look like it to me.
The hands, for example, seem blurred in some spots (to cover ai glitches?).
More likely just low detail because they're small, and the image has been reduced in size from the original.
The big tell would be to look at fussy repeated detail. Hair, clothes, the dragon's teeth, scales, and horns, etc. Generative programs are always going to end up going weird in there. IT all looks normal. (I think the rogue does actually have too many fingers, but that's a screwup humans can make, too. All the other hands with detail look like hands.)
Pass-through detail (where something goes behind something else and comes out again) is often another tell, though there's not much of it here. (And again, humans do screw it up.)
(There's also more technical stuff, like weird perspective and lighting, that are harder for the untrained eye (like mine) to spot.)
So, I was zooming in close to the image for the first story on the homepage (PHB 2024).
I swear that image is constructed from layered AI images. I could be wrong, but it sure looks like it.
The hands, for example, seem blurred in some spots (to cover ai glitches?).
For my own opinion, I don't mind.
Yes. Let's please start the new Salem Witch Trails, because artists don't yet have it hard enough to survive in today's world.
Wizards have made quite explicit that they intend to use AI. Which is to say some money that might have gone to some creatives will not be going to those creatives. Let's not pretend we care about the well-beings of artists when we rush to defend a multibillion dollar corporation's use of generative AI when (a) AI steals from artists' existing work to cobble together what are mere pastiches and (b) AI limits artists' access to wealth by replacing them. Cocks could not help himself and couldn't even be honest when he rationalized the company's use of AI. He said "everyone" in the hobby uses AI. But don't let me stop you if you want to rush to defend liars.
So, I was zooming in close to the image for the first story on the homepage (PHB 2024).
I swear that image is constructed from layered AI images. I could be wrong, but it sure looks like it.
The hands, for example, seem blurred in some spots (to cover ai glitches?).
For my own opinion, I don't mind.
Yes. Let's please start the new Salem Witch Trails, because artists don't yet have it hard enough to survive in today's world.
Wizards have made quite explicit that they intend to use AI. Which is to say some money that might have gone to some creatives will not be going to those creatives. Let's not pretend we care about the well-beings of artists when we rush to defend a multibillion dollar corporation's use of generative AI when (a) AI steals from artists' existing work to cobble together what are mere pastiches and (b) AI limits artists' access to wealth by replacing them. Cocks could not help himself and couldn't even be honest when he rationalized the company's use of AI. He said "everyone" in the hobby uses AI. But don't let me stop you if you want to rush to defend liars.
[REDACTED]
Wizards’ official policy is extremely pro artist - and, especially due to Magic, they are unquestionably the biggest name in the game when it comes to purchasing fantasy art and supporting fantasy artists. They have repeatedly said that they will only be using real art in official content, and they have publicly apologized when something gets passed them and severed ties with artists who flagrantly violate this policy. This is consistent with their draconian, no second chances approach to plagiarized art.
No one at Hasbro or Wizards has said they are going to change this policy - nor are they likely to, since you can’t copyright AI generated images. Since Wizards lives and dies in their art, they have a vested interest in protecting the usage of human-created art in their products. This is not going to change anytime soon.
Now, yes, the CEO of Hasbro has said they are interested in exploring AI. As is every company right now - it is a powerful tool with lots of applications. But that doesn’t mean they are suddenly going to screw over artists and use generative AI to make official artwork that lacks copyright protections.
What they likely are going to use it for in the artistic space? Character images for in-game, something Cocks has said he is seeing used frequently (for myself, I see it used frequently as well). This particular type of usage does not really hurt artists. The people who would commission custom art for their characters probably will still do so; the people who never commissioned art are not lost revenue to artists, since they were not paying anything in the first place.
So, I was zooming in close to the image for the first story on the homepage (PHB 2024).
I swear that image is constructed from layered AI images. I could be wrong, but it sure looks like it.
The hands, for example, seem blurred in some spots (to cover ai glitches?).
For my own opinion, I don't mind.
Yes. Let's please start the new Salem Witch Trails, because artists don't yet have it hard enough to survive in today's world.
Wizards have made quite explicit that they intend to use AI. Which is to say some money that might have gone to some creatives will not be going to those creatives. Let's not pretend we care about the well-beings of artists when we rush to defend a multibillion dollar corporation's use of generative AI when (a) AI steals from artists' existing work to cobble together what are mere pastiches and (b) AI limits artists' access to wealth by replacing them. Cocks could not help himself and couldn't even be honest when he rationalized the company's use of AI. He said "everyone" in the hobby uses AI. But don't let me stop you if you want to rush to defend liars.
[REDACTED]
Wizards’ official policy is extremely pro artist - and, especially due to Magic, they are unquestionably the biggest name in the game when it comes to purchasing fantasy art and supporting fantasy artists. They have repeatedly said that they will only be using real art in official content, and they have publicly apologized when something gets passed them and severed ties with artists who flagrantly violate this policy. This is consistent with their draconian, no second chances approach to plagiarized art.
No one at Hasbro or Wizards has said they are going to change this policy - nor are they likely to, since you can’t copyright AI generated images. Since Wizards lives and dies in their art, they have a vested interest in protecting the usage of human-created art in their products. This is not going to change anytime soon.
Now, yes, the CEO of Hasbro has said they are interested in exploring AI. As is every company right now - it is a powerful tool with lots of applications. But that doesn’t mean they are suddenly going to screw over artists and use generative AI to make official artwork that lacks copyright protections.
What they likely are going to use it for in the artistic space? Character images for in-game, something Cocks has said he is seeing used frequently (for myself, I see it used frequently as well). This particular type of usage does not really hurt artists. The people who would commission custom art for their characters probably will still do so; the people who never commissioned art are not lost revenue to artists, since they were not paying anything in the first place.
Their policy is "extremely pro-artist" but smaller competitors have been known to pay both artists and writers as much as they do or more when it isn't as if they couldn't afford to pay the most competitive rates in the industry ...
Funnily enough on these very forums someone once said they won't hire the likes of Caldwell or Elmore or Easley no more because they "can't" afford them. They could. But would rather pay relative unknowns—a nice enough gesture—whose work will be forgotten tomorrow considerably less.
Some of the most important artists in the game's history still get work from smaller publishers: like Russ Nicholson until we sadly lost him last year. It might be argued Wizards have a different vision in terms of art for the game but that is probably a chicken or egg debate for another day.
You had nothing to say about what was hyperbole at best when Cocks said "everyone" in the hobby is using AI. I get that some people believe gaslighting is a perfectly acceptable tool of communication. Many of us find it unconscionable. And not least of all when corporations do it.
How do people expect WotC to stop every single instance of AI generated art? Do people think they're going to sit there and watch every single picture get drawn by hand?
They created a policy and said they require artists to not use AI - what can they possibly do if an artist breaks the policy and lies about it? I don't get how people think this is somehow WotC's fault
You said it THEY created the policy so they have to live up to it. When they don't people are gonna be unhappy.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I'm of 2 minds on this, I love the technology, hate that the people doing it are cheating and stealing art to train the algorithm. (Because it's not really Artificial Intelligence, it's an Algorithm mixing and merging Art and Pictures into new Art and Pictures. Based on descriptive terms.)
So say they hired an artist or group of artists to paint a bunch of images, and then they trained the Algorithm on those images and Public domain Art I would have no issues with it. But they are using another kind of AI to gather all the images on the internet to train the Algorithm. And that is actually illegal, specifically copyright law. They are doing a poor job at hiding it as well.
Now for me and my D&D game as the DM, meh, whatever, if my players use the art algorithm to make a version of their character I don't care, as long as they don't pay anyone for it. Now if WotC charged me money for Stolen art, I would be annoyed, as D&D has gone down this road before and lost.
Deities and Demigods 1st Published in 1980, hit with several big copyright lawsuits, they pulled it, republished with credit to one copyright holder and removing the other, they then pulled it again republished with no stolen material. (Copyrights they stole back then: Michael Moorcock's the Melnibonéan mythos, and the Cthulhu Mythos from H. P. Lovecraft.) Sure that book didn't use AI, but they did basically the same thing, took someone else's work without permission and claimed it as their own and tried to make money on it.
So basically I follow the rule of memes, common people who gain nothing but a moment of fun using generative AI art no big, a company making money using stolen copyrighted material I have an issue with it.
Notably, they created the policy after one instance. The MTG promotional thing is the second instance, but only the first after the policy was announced. I wouldn't exactly call this some endemic problem yet. I'm not pleased it slipped through, and their social media account initially insisting the art was real was a big step on the proverbial rake, but again, we're talking about two relatively minor instances that have been addressed. Maybe that changes and they go back on their word at some point in the future; then I'll be worried/angry/writing stern letters.
Yeah, they created it, and communicated it to the artists they work with. If the artist doesn’t abide by it, how is it their fault? So you hold them responsible when someone else lies to them? The blame goes to the artist. Who, by the way, should be the one extra sensitive to this, as a person who’s creations could potentially be used to train more AI, and who could be put out if a job by AI.
And if people really want to be cynical, remember that WotC sells prints of the art pieces, or at least licenses them back to the original artist, who then sells them. They (Wizards) have a financial interest in having high quality, copyrighted art.
They thought it wasn't, because the artist either lied to them, or was unaware of Adobe putting AI into the tools they used. The more we rake them over the coals for an honest mistake, the closer we get to the suits saying "screw it, we've lost those customers anyway" and diving into AI with both feet.
So, this will be another one of the things that there are upmteen bazillion threads about from people with some sort of an axe to grind against whoever happens to own D&D at the time.
THis is like the 10th one in just the last 3 months or something.
1 - it is a bad faith argument as laid out. Sorry, it is, because it presupposes something without evidence.
2 - Hasbro (because wizards is a division within hasbro, not a stand alone company anymore, and hasn't been for, like, decades, so to call them out is asinine and ignorant) is a company that is primarily built on IP. Right now, Generative AI art output -- written and image -- is not something one can copyright. It is potentially (though untested) something that could not be trademarked. As a direct result of that, not only does Hasbro have to make sure that stuff doesn't sneak in, but the creators of AI programs are actively seeking ways to make it possible to get it all into stuff like this. Admittedly. Which means that like anyone else who depends on intellectual property and the resultant licensing, they have to invest funds in something which there is no clear cut set of rules for locating, detecting, identifying, or dealing with. In something that has only become an issue in the last two ****in years.
3 - People went on a wild tear about "AI art" being used in the PHB and one MTG card -- and in both cases, the "internet at large" was full of horseshit, and actively insulting the artists who created the very works that were being proclaimed as "AI".
No company that has ever owned D&D has ever been free of BS and drama, just like no company is ever free of BS and drama. And, for those counting, that is three companies.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
just wanna put it out there that Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, and Midjourney have been proven to definitely contain the capability to completely replicate a work of art or a screenshot from a movie (they did feed the individual frames of a number of films into their dataset) and you can do so with very few keywords, often times keywords only vaguely related to the characters. There have been a number of articles in the last week about this. It is not creating completely unique artworks and characters every time, it is capable of accidental copyright infringement, and it is trained, without permission, on millions of unassuming, uninvolved artists.
As an artist myself, the issue is not, and never will be with AI tools. AI tools make doing work easier. AI tools are fantastic (two good examples of inert AI tools are The Colourizer in Clip Studio Paint, or the Content-Aware fill in Photoshop). AI tools can and should be developed to help people in all fields. The issue is squarely with the dehumanization and abuse of artists, the lying, the stealing, and the cheating.
These repugnant clowns who call the shots with Midjourney are out here talking about artists as if they are just an inanimate data set for which to train better AIs on, they are adding tens of thousands of specific artist's names to their catalogue of STYLE references... to try and ensure people can just have those very specific artist's commissions free of charge. And they have publicly discussed that they are using specific popular artist's works to ensure they can create "pre-rendered images" using their style completely that can then be altered minimally to ensure consistency, and how they launder artists work through a codex to keep it from being recognized by other softwares and avoid legal troubles. And the entire time, they are dehumanizing the artists that they are quite literally stealing from.
Not to mention several of the Generative AI Art tools out there are also being made so that they can generate fake "work in progress" shots so that these slimeballs can "prove the authenticity of hand made work" to try and compete in painting and art competitions against humans, or to try and be a part of painting and digital art communities online for people who want to share and grow their styles and skills together, as well as share their ideas, tips, and tricks to help each other. They do this to allow themselves to call themselves artists and to gain fame and to shame actual legitimate artists. But lets face it, the idiot ordering the pizza with specific toppings isn't the chef. They just the hungry idiot at the counter with the money, and no one would ever in their right minds call them a chef for ordering that pizza.
I have on SO many occasions seen and heard AI Bros talking about how "now that AI is here to stay, we can finally knock artists off their pestle and make them suffer" as if "starving artist" wasn't a title almost all of us but a very small number hold while we work 1 to 3 other jobs to make ends meet. All because we did not want to waste our precious time doing some weird nonsense for exposure one time on deviant art when these people were 14 and desperate to get some art of their Sonic OC.
It is disgusting, and until the creators of these sites are held responsible, and Generative AI tools are created fairly, without compromising anyone's existence or their agency over their works, I foresee a continuation of these arguments.
And before anyone says Generative AI doesn't compromise someones existence, there are mushroom foraging guides being written by AIs and sold on amazon that have incorrect information that can and will get people killed. Why? because it seemed lucrative enough at the time, I guess. Just another disgusting and abhorrent symptom of this cancer I suppose.
____
Back to the topic at hand, I think WotC is doing as much as anyone can be expected to do given the current digital climate. I appreciate their efforts to hire artists, and think those artists SHOULD be allowed to utilize AI assisted tools, within reason. I feel like so long as the AI they are using has been developed ethically (either trained on owned, or licensed data points), and is not responsible for more than 40-50% of the artwork in total, it is absolutely okay. At the end of the day, you should be hiring someone who is actually doing the work that people are paying money to experience.
Also, please note: I am not condemning anyone for using AI art for personal use. I am not condemning the people who were alleged to have used AI Generated Imagery for the D&D book in question (there's a equal enough chance they weren't, and were, with or without "proof") And I do not condone the bullying of anyone who may or may not have utilized AI.
Because the generative stuff is probabilistic, stuff that's strongly correlated in their training data will tend to come out together. This is easier to do with the text generators, but it can happen with the image ones, too. (And it's unlikely to be completely identical, just very, very similar.)
In most cases, this is incredibly true, but for Midjourney, they were expressing that the end result for these specific style-based requests would be to have it altered very little. Maybe change some colours, maybe change an arm pose, maybe slap a background from another work by the same artist in there with again minimal changes. It isn't PERFECTLY the same at the end of the day, but without that codex baking they are doing, tools like Google lens, google reverse image search, and tineye would still add the works to related images of the original components. They expressed that they wanted it this way they could get the most popular heavy lifting mostly pre-generated to avoid strain on the system and pump out those works with less wait time.
It's all very seedy and underhanded stuff that is actively being designed by people who do want to cause harm to artists.
So, I was zooming in close to the image for the first story on the homepage (PHB 2024).
I swear that image is constructed from layered AI images. I could be wrong, but it sure looks like it.
The hands, for example, seem blurred in some spots (to cover ai glitches?).
For my own opinion, I don't mind.
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The one with a bunch of people fighting a big dragon? Doesn't look like it to me.
More likely just low detail because they're small, and the image has been reduced in size from the original.
The big tell would be to look at fussy repeated detail. Hair, clothes, the dragon's teeth, scales, and horns, etc. Generative programs are always going to end up going weird in there. IT all looks normal. (I think the rogue does actually have too many fingers, but that's a screwup humans can make, too. All the other hands with detail look like hands.)
Pass-through detail (where something goes behind something else and comes out again) is often another tell, though there's not much of it here. (And again, humans do screw it up.)
(There's also more technical stuff, like weird perspective and lighting, that are harder for the untrained eye (like mine) to spot.)
Yes. Let's please start the new Salem Witch Trails, because artists don't yet have it hard enough to survive in today's world.
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Wizards have made quite explicit that they intend to use AI. Which is to say some money that might have gone to some creatives will not be going to those creatives. Let's not pretend we care about the well-beings of artists when we rush to defend a multibillion dollar corporation's use of generative AI when (a) AI steals from artists' existing work to cobble together what are mere pastiches and (b) AI limits artists' access to wealth by replacing them. Cocks could not help himself and couldn't even be honest when he rationalized the company's use of AI. He said "everyone" in the hobby uses AI. But don't let me stop you if you want to rush to defend liars.
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Wizards’ official policy is extremely pro artist - and, especially due to Magic, they are unquestionably the biggest name in the game when it comes to purchasing fantasy art and supporting fantasy artists. They have repeatedly said that they will only be using real art in official content, and they have publicly apologized when something gets passed them and severed ties with artists who flagrantly violate this policy. This is consistent with their draconian, no second chances approach to plagiarized art.
No one at Hasbro or Wizards has said they are going to change this policy - nor are they likely to, since you can’t copyright AI generated images. Since Wizards lives and dies in their art, they have a vested interest in protecting the usage of human-created art in their products. This is not going to change anytime soon.
Now, yes, the CEO of Hasbro has said they are interested in exploring AI. As is every company right now - it is a powerful tool with lots of applications. But that doesn’t mean they are suddenly going to screw over artists and use generative AI to make official artwork that lacks copyright protections.
What they likely are going to use it for in the artistic space? Character images for in-game, something Cocks has said he is seeing used frequently (for myself, I see it used frequently as well). This particular type of usage does not really hurt artists. The people who would commission custom art for their characters probably will still do so; the people who never commissioned art are not lost revenue to artists, since they were not paying anything in the first place.
Their policy is "extremely pro-artist" but smaller competitors have been known to pay both artists and writers as much as they do or more when it isn't as if they couldn't afford to pay the most competitive rates in the industry ...
Funnily enough on these very forums someone once said they won't hire the likes of Caldwell or Elmore or Easley no more because they "can't" afford them. They could. But would rather pay relative unknowns—a nice enough gesture—whose work will be forgotten tomorrow considerably less.
Some of the most important artists in the game's history still get work from smaller publishers: like Russ Nicholson until we sadly lost him last year. It might be argued Wizards have a different vision in terms of art for the game but that is probably a chicken or egg debate for another day.
You had nothing to say about what was hyperbole at best when Cocks said "everyone" in the hobby is using AI. I get that some people believe gaslighting is a perfectly acceptable tool of communication. Many of us find it unconscionable. And not least of all when corporations do it.